Reviews and musings on music and arts events in the Clare, Limerick & Waterford regions & occasionally further afield

Music and Reviews from Clare, Limerick, Waterford and sometimes further afield

Sunday, July 18, 2010

A Night at The Opera

I had two wonderful nights at the opera in the last month and all for the price of a cinema ticket. Productions from Barcelona Opera House and Convent Garden were screened at several venues throughout the country recently. SGC Cinemas are to be commended for screening the live production of the Queen of Spades by Tchaikowsky from Gran Teatro del Liceu at Dungarvan . There is a certain frisson from the knowledge that the screening is live and some early problems with transmission of audio track were soon sorted but sadly not before most of the audience had left the auditorium.

The second evening was at the very grand surroundings of Wexford Opera House . This suffered from the absence of subtitles , quite a serious impediment to following the nuances of the plot. The screening was not live which meant two acts could be screened back to back which was a little too much . Thomas Hampson was particularly wonderful as Germot pere and Renee Fleming looked and sounded convincing as La Traviata from Covent Garden